This is another dictated post please excuse errors and lack of quality. Photos will follow in a few weeks.
Friday, 9 May
Distance and ascent: 22km, 1200m
Weather: mainly sunny with just a few fluffy clouds in the afternoon
Another morning that required the midge head net.
When I was scouting around for a pitch last night I considered climbing about 50m up the hill to where it looked like the land flattened out, but not wanting to do that only to find there wasn’t anywhere suitable, I stuck with the not-the-worst-ever one at the track end (actually it turned out to be perfectly comfortable). I soon discovered this morning that I should’ve continued upwards, with plenty of opportunity for a good pitch in various places up there.
A good, unerring trodden line took me from the end of the track, near to which I'd camped (at 150m), up to about 350m. Beyond there, other trods and ATV tracks made the going easier than expected and there was relatively little yomping.
After visiting the summit of Cruach nan Cuilean (432m) my vetted route had seen me descend E, almost back down to sea level, before climbing the other side of the glen to a forest track. It was a late change when I saw that if I headed north off the hill, I could probably cut through a bit of forest and that way I wouldn’t drop below 250m. It would also cut off a little bit of distance. It was pleasing from the top of the hill to see that the forest had been felled and thus even from a distance I knew my new route would be feasible. I stopped for water on the way which turned into quite a long break.
After dropping down to a burn and then climbing up the other side I just had to climb over a bit of clear-felling detritus to get onto a forest machinery track (not a made track, just the one formed by the passage of the felling machines). I would’ve appreciated if they’ve left a little bit less detritus on the track but I suppose they were working for their own convenience not for the single walker who might have thought this was a good route! Even so, it worked well and got me to the forest track I wanted to be on.
My intended route out of that section of forest was the same on both my original and my revised route, but when I got there it was blocked. Fortunately I had a fallback, which turned out to be the most perfect fire break I’ve ever walked: firm under foot, only the most minor tussocks, no bog, no blow downs.
My second hill of the day was Creag Tharsuinn (643m) which involved about 3km of rough, tough terrain, but I took it steady and slowly made it to the top. I had lunch on the way on the most perfect chair shaped rock. It was only after I had eaten that I thought to dry the tent so I paused longer whilst a bit of the moisture evaporated.
My original route had again seen me dropping very steeply east off this hill, down to cross the 150m contour, before climbing steeply up to the 741m summit of Beinn Mhor. I’d again noticed that I could save dropping some height by going a slightly different way, with the bonus that it meant I could pitch the tent and then do another packless out-and-back - I didn't have it in me to climb another pathless 600m. However, the revised route did again rely on fire breaks being passable and given the destruction all around from winter storms and that I’d already been lucky once today, I knew I was taking a risk.
Had I known that the bottom of that glen there was an old, unmapped track, I would’ve dropped down from the Bealach before Creag Tharsuinn (after doing a packless out and back up to the summit). As it was, I continued along with the slightly undulating ridge beyond the summit and then dropped very steeply down between crags only to find that my intended way on through the forest was blocked. I had little confidence in my fallback, but was lucky again. I joined the lovely old track and although I was braced to find a mess of fallen trees at every turn, it had only one small blowdown which I just stepped over.
Once I joined the modern forest track, I climbed up to Bealach Bernice Glen where I struggled to find a good pitch. In fact there was no good pitch. After poking around some distance in various directions, I pitched the tent on a bog, went to get water, scouted again around the burn (which was about 200m away from where I'd pitched) then went back to the tent. Belatedly I saw what looked like an old track up above the burn so I trogged back over there and clambered up, hoping that there'd be a grassed over area at the end where I could move to, but no. I was to be a bog dweller that night (again, it turned out to be a perfectly comfortable night).
Back at the tent I couldn’t face another hill today and it was too hot to sit in the tent so I made an early tea found a rock outside to sit on ... then decided actually I could face another hill but instead of the one that I intended to do today, I brought forward tomorrow's smaller hill (Beinn Bheag 618m), on the opposite side of the pass. I was supposed to do that one as a traverse with my pack, but was happy to take the easier option.
Before I set out, I plotted a route to minimise distance and avoid lumps in the way. I then proceeded to ignored my plotted line and went up the hard way after all. I came back on the plotted route which was much more sensible and efficient. On my way down, I crossed a track that wasn’t on the map. I assumed it wouldn’t be any use to me but it did go my way and I ended up tracking it, but I was slightly higher up the hillside, uncomfortably contouring rather than using it's nice flat surface!
Back at the tent, I was feeling what a long hard day it had been (effort over that terrain, rather than distance) and thus I declared it to be bedtime.
(I appreciate that all the directional notes and old vs new route will make much more sense once I've added a map snippet in, in a couple of weeks' time.)
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